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Restoration In Turkey To Take Time

30.06.2015 12:06

Resuscitating Turkey's democracy and restoring the rule of law after the brief yet brutal authoritarian experimental rule of political Islamists will surely take some time as the country, under the caretaker government of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), will continue wrangling over negotiations for a possible coalition government.

Resuscitating Turkey's democracy and restoring the rule of law after the brief yet brutal authoritarian experimental rule of political Islamists will surely take some time as the country, under the caretaker government of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), will continue wrangling over negotiations for a possible coalition government.
No doubt the Islamists, who have already been dealt a blow with the loss of their majority in Parliament, will be further weakened with the formation of the next government, which is set to revise policies, overhaul the civil service and lift pressure on the judiciary, media, civil society groups and the business community.
If one thing is certain, the June 7 election marked a clear shift in voter sentiment, one that has grown quite uneasy over AKP rule. As Turkey's leading political parties have found themselves in a rather difficult position to cobble together a compromise in order to form a government, the Islamists will have to cede significant powers to others in the governance of the country.
Making matters worse for the Islamists is the growing rift among ranks over the loss of the majority, which has already fueled factionalism. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's constant meddling into the AKP and government affairs has exacerbated these already-complicated fissures in the executive and judicial branches of the government. The deepening division between Erdoğan and his lame-duck prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, and personal rivalries among heavyweights that jockey for position and influence in the post-election era will top off the problem for the AKP, leading to trench warfare among factions.
Former President Abdullah Gül, another Islamist cut from a different cloth, will continue to cast a long shadow over the party as well. The undeclared war among pro-government media figures is a public aspect of this lingering feud between the AKP and Erdoğan as well as among the factions within the AKP.
Erdoğan, Davutoğlu and the AKP have had this coming. Since the AKP stopped the investigations of massive corruption by suspending the rule of law, reshuffling and even purging thousands of judges and prosecutors, that corruption matter will continue to hurt the AKP badly. The opposition parties will hang that over the heads of AKP leaders, especially President Erdoğan, who was at the center of the graft probes.
Any opposition party that is likely to enter into a coalition with the AKP will do its best to stay away from the toxic mixture of the corruption allegations and assistance to radical groups in Syria, fearing the blame will be shifted to them. They do not want to be an accomplice to the AKP's crimes, especially when a snap election is a possibility. Therefore, they will insist that the AKP fully divorces itself from corrupt figures and distances itself from Erdoğan. Davutoğlu, a man whose back has been pushed to the wall, knows that he has to sweeten the deal more to convince the partnering political party to form a government with the AKP.
When Erdoğan decided to fight the corruption charges politically rather than let the judicial investigations take their due course, he dealt a big blow to the credibility of the AKP with a drawn-out scandal. Since there has been no closure over the case in the people's minds and no satisfaction obtained in a court of law, the graft claims have continued to be rehashed in each of the three election cycles in the past one-and-a-half years.
More importantly, this hurt the AKP's ability to sell itself to voters as a political party that is graft-free. This is especially troublesome for the AKP because it came to power in 2002 by showcasing itself as the underdog that will do away with all corruption and favoritism.
Adding insult to injury, Erdoğan and AKP officials described the corruption probes as an attempt to topple the government and defended the disgraced ministers who were exposed for taking millions of dollars in bribe money with shoeboxes and chocolate boxes full of cash. They also fabricated the biggest hoax in Turkish history by orchestrating a lie about a "parallel state" in order to dump any blame on the peaceful civic movement Hizmet, which is inspired by well-respected Turkish Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen. Erdoğan and Davutoğlu have publicly accused Turkey's partners and allies of conspiracies of overthrowing the Islamists when there was no evidence to warrant such absurd claims. In the end, the AKP lost its way and the message that had distinguished it from other political parties has long been lost.
The fact that there is no sign of abating on this conspiratorial mentality among the Islamists, as opposed to accountability in governance and ending impunity, will further weaken the AKP. Traditionally, a caretaker government in a post-election era limits itself to the bare essentials to maintain the daily functioning of the government until a new elected government takes its place. That was the case in the past in Turkish political history. Yet the Islamists are rushing to dismiss critics and opponents from civil service, appoint partisans en masse and engage in a spending bonanza of taxpayers' money as their last plunder campaign. The next government will have to foot a staggering bill to pay for what the AKP has done to this nation.
The challenge will be huge, given that the AKP will likely be a leading partner in the coalition government and putting up a resistance to the restoration efforts by the junior partner. That is why I believe any coalition scenarios with the AKP being a partner will not work in the long haul, precipitating a snap election. The AKP as a band of brothers who partnered in crimes is not a political party in the sense that an introductory course to political science teaches us. Nor is Erdoğan a president who thinks of himself as bound by the Constitution. Erdoğan and his associates in the AKP and in the government will hunker down for a while before making a full frontal assault on freedoms, rights and the rule of law.
As the saying goes, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. People in this land have come to understand all the tricks and deceptions employed by the political Islamists, and they won't be buying into the same repackaged arguments again.

ABDULLAH BOZKURT (Cihan/Today's Zaman)



 
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